The Tale of Despereaux - Kate DiCamillo [19]
“Yes,” muttered Roscuro. “Yes. That is exactly what I intend to do. I will make the princess suffer for how she looked at me.”
And as Roscuro worked and planned, the jailer Gregory held tight to his rope and made his own way through the darkness, and in a dank cell, the prisoner who had once had a red tablecloth and now had nothing, spent his days and nights weeping quietly.
High above the dungeon, upstairs, in the castle, a small mouse stood alone one evening as his brothers and sisters sniffed for crumbs. He stood with his head cocked to one side, listening to a sweet sound he did not yet have a name for. There would be consequences of the mouse’s love for music. You, reader, know already some of those consequences. Because of the music, the mouse would find his way to a princess. He would fall in love.
And speaking of consequences, the same evening that Despereaux stood inside the castle hearing music for the first time, outside the castle, in the gloom of dusk, more consequences drew near. A wagon driven by a king’s soldier and piled high with spoons and bowls and kettles was making its way to the castle. And beside the soldier there sat a young girl with ears that looked like nothing so much as pieces of cauliflower stuck on either side of her head.
The girl’s name, reader, was Miggery Sow. And though she did not yet know it, she would be instrumental in helping the rat work his revenge.
End of the Second Book
AGAIN, READER, we must go backward before we can go forward. With that said, here begins a short history of the life and times of Miggery Sow, a girl born into this world many years before the mouse Despereaux and the rat Chiaroscuro, a girl born far from the castle, a girl named for her father’s favorite prize-winning pig.
Miggery Sow was six years old when her mother, holding on to Mig’s hand and staring directly into Mig’s eyes, died.
“Ma?” said Mig. “Ma, couldn’t you stay here with me?”
“Oh,” said her mother. “Who is that? Who is that holding my hand?”
“It’s me, Ma, Miggery Sow.”
“Ah, child, let me go.”
“But I want you to stay here,” said Mig, wiping first at her runny nose and then at her runny eyes.
“You want,” said her mother.
“Yes,” said Mig, “I want.”
“Ah, child, and what does it matter what you are wanting?” said her mother. She squeezed Mig’s hand once, twice, and then she died, leaving Mig alone with her father, who, on a market day in spring soon after his wife’s death, sold his daughter into service for a handful of cigarettes, a red tablecloth, and a hen.
“Papa?” said Mig, when her father was walking away from her with the hen in his arms, a cigarette in his mouth, and the red tablecloth draped across his shoulders like a cape.
“Go on, Mig,” he said. “You belong to that man now.”
“But I don’t want to, Papa,” she said. “I want to go with you.” She took hold of the red tablecloth and tugged on it.
“Lord, child,” her father said, “and who is asking you what you want? Go on now.” He untangled her fingers from the cloth and turned her in the direction of the man who had bought her.
Mig watched her father walk away, the red tablecloth billowing out behind him. He left his daughter. And, reader, as you already know, he did not look back. Not even once.
Can you imagine it? Can you imagine your father selling you for a tablecloth, a hen, and a handful of cigarettes? Close your eyes, please, and consider it for just a moment.
Done?
I hope that the hair on the back of your neck stood up as you thought of Mig’s fate and how it would be if it were your own.
Poor Mig. What will become of her? You must, frightened though you may be, read on and see for yourself.
Reader, it is your duty.
MIGGERY SOW called the man who purchased her Uncle, as he said she must. And also, as he said she must, Mig tended Uncle’s sheep and cooked Uncle’s food and scrubbed Uncle’s kettle. She did all of this without